Mirrors of Dysfunction
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Abandon all Hope tag and follow-up to "The One That Got Away": Sam brings his battered brother home to Bobby's, who sees the invisible injuries along with the visible. Bobby POV.


**Mirrors of Dysfunction**  
K Hanna Korossy

He'd left the door open, literally and metaphorically. But by the time the Impala's growl cut off, he was already behind the screen door, waiting.

Sam climbed out of the driver's side, long limbs ungainly from fatigue but unflagging with determination. He all but ran around to the other side, opening the passenger side door and ducking in.

Bobby watched in silence, cursing yet again the chair that kept him from helping those he loved.

Sam backed out of the car, swinging a pair of legs out with him. Then he was stooping down, clearly straining to do most of the lifting.

Dean finally came into view, but his face was downturned, head hanging with exhaustion and, if Bobby knew the boy, embarrassment at needing to be practically carried. Didn't matter that he'd been mauled almost to death by a Hellhound less than a week before or that his audience of two could never possibly think him weak.

The Winchester boys shuffled the dozen feet between car and house, Sam ducking down to talk to his brother as they went. Dean didn't respond, just clasped bad arm to injured belly more tightly as he limped along on hurt leg.

For once, Bobby was reluctantly grateful for the wheelchair ramp that now covered his porch steps; even the elevation was easier than stairs would have been. Dean paused midway nonetheless, breathing in soft pants while Sam waited, then, with a word, got him moving again.

Bobby held the screen door open, oblivious to the Dakota December air he was letting in.

"Hey, Bobby," Sam puffed as he maneuvered his double width inside.

"Sam." More gently, "Dean."

From where he was sitting, at least he could see up into the boy's face. It was pale, of course, damp with sweat and drawn in lines of suffering. His eyes were pinched shut, but they fluttered at Bobby's greeting.

"Couch?" Sam asked, pausing a step inside the door.

"Bed's changed down here," Bobby answered.

"Couch," Sam said decisively, and turned the pair of them.

"Sam—"

"Not takin'…yer bed…"

It was a whisper his old ears barely caught, and Bobby blinked in surprise that Dean was tracking that much, let alone talking.

"You wanna argue with him?" Sam asked, almost teasing.

Bobby scowled. "Not particularly." He eyed the clench of Dean's fingers that strained the shoulder seams of Sam's shirt. "I'll get some bedding." He wheeled away, past the bedroom the boys had helped him set up downstairs just months before, to the linen closet they'd also moved down. He grabbed a pillow and two blankets, piling them in his lap, then rolled back to the living room.

Dean was on the couch now, sitting bent over and tender. Sam was crouched in front of him, talking to him low, hands cupped on his brother's knees. Bobby watched with an oddly tight throat as Dean's head bobbed just a little in response.

Sam looked up, and Bobby tossed him the pillow. It went on one end of the longer couch he'd gotten when the Winchester boys had started to become a regular fixture in his house again. Then Sam was lowering Dean, carefully avoiding pressure on the spots where Bobby knew bandages were hidden. Over Dean's long released breath, his little brother lifted his legs up after him, then reached out without looking. Blankets in hand, he tucked Dean in, a smile flickering when his brother feebly shrugged him off.

Next Sam took several bottles of pills from his pocket and lined them up on the coffee table. As if he owned the place, he went into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water to add to the row. A brief press of the hand on the invalid's shoulder—Dean already looked asleep, and so wasn't protesting—and then Sam turned tired eyes to Bobby.

Bobby tipped his head toward the study.

"I'll get him upstairs later," Sam spoke low as he joined him. "Ride here just took a lot out of him."

"You sure he should be out of the hospital yet?" Bobby asked skeptically, leading the way to his cluttered desk. "I've seen zombies look livelier."

"The hospital was making him edgy. I figured he'd rest better here."

Bobby didn't respond, opening a drawer to pull out a depressingly empty bottle of whiskey, and he poured the last two fingers into the pair of mostly clean glasses he had at hand.

Sam didn't hesitate to take one, tossing it back in a single swallow. He set it down, a little color now in his cheeks, and rubbed a hand that noticeably shook across his mouth. "God, Bobby. The way he screamed… It was like New Harmony all over again."

"Except this time you fried Cujo and saved him. He's gonna be fine, Sam."

"Yeah?" Sam said with little hope.

Bobby shook his head. He was hardly in any position to be playing Freud for anyone, as screwed up as his own melon was. The chair had brought out something bitter and ugly in him that he wasn't proud of but couldn't seem to dispel. Didn't seem likely he could help someone else when he couldn't even help himself.

But Sam's shoulders were bowed with the load of misery he seemed to have taken over from his brother, and Bobby couldn't ignore that, either, even as messed up as he was.

"I was thinkin'…" He watched Sam's head lift a little. "Maybe it would help me find a way to cage up the devil again if I knew more about how he got out. All of it—what Ruby told you, how it went down with Dean, how Lilith died."

Sam seemed to pale a little more, and swallowed hard. "All of it?" he asked in a whisper.

Bobby almost took it back, but he made himself press on. "Every detail."

Another swallow. Sam looked a little green now. But he nodded dumbly. "Yeah, all right." He gave Bobby a pained smile. "We're gonna need a lot more liquor then."

"That," Bobby said quietly, "I can do."

00000

He rolled out the sleeping bag while Sam was in the shower, making sure it was where Dean would see it if he opened his eyes. Another almost-fresh pillow and pair of blankets, and the floor was as comfortable as Bobby could make it. He wouldn't have even tried to talk Sam into taking one of the beds upstairs.

"Sam?"

Dean's rusty voice from behind him made Bobby twist, then, cursing, actually roll his chair around to face the couch. "He's in the shower."

Dean's eyes were barely open, his awareness questionable. "…okay?"

Well, besides watching his brother almost be gutted. "He's fine," Bobby reassured him. "Running on fumes, but we'll fix that."

Dean surprised him again with a soft snort. "…guilty."

He wasn't as adept at translating Winchester shorthand as another Winchester would be, but Bobby figured he got the drift. "Yeah, well, seeing your brother go down twice in as many weeks'll do that to ya." Sam had told him about how Dean would have been ripped apart in Carthage if not for Jo. And how Dean hated himself for not shooting Meg when he had the chance. "Don't forget, he learned from the best."

Dean's glare through heavy-lidded, sunken eyes was about as threatening as, well, a bedridden invalid's. Bobby just rolled his own eyes. It wasn't like this was any kind of big secret. Dean still carried guilt for bringing Sam back from the dead in the first place, putting him back into play for Azazel's game, then pushing him further down that track with his damage and anger. Those two loved each other like no one else Bobby knew, but as with all siblings, they saved the most judgment and least grace for each other.

He'd watched with dismay the vicious cycle the year before. Dean broken and struggling after Hell, needing his brother to look up to him in order to start feeling better about himself. Sam, broken and struggling after months on his own, worried about his brother, pitying more than respecting him. Dean's morale ebbing even more at Sam's condescension, in turn making Sam even more determined to take care of him. Next thing you knew, the world was ending and everyone felt lousy and damn but it was bad news when this family was at odds. And Bobby thought _John_ Winchester had been trouble.

But while maybe they'd lost the battle for Sam's innocence, he was pretty sure they'd won the war for his soul. Sam was a good man, and if character was really destiny, Dean had nothing to worry about.

Of course, try telling that to the moron.

Sam walked in on them that way, Dean frowning feebly on the couch, Bobby not giving an inch. His hands paused in the process of toweling his wet hair.

"Uh…everything okay?"

Dean's shoulders, which Bobby hadn't even noticed until then, visibly relaxed at his brother's arrival. "Won' give me…drink," he whispered petulantly, lying with ease even half-unconscious.

"Uh, _yeah_. You're on, like, ten different medications, man." Sam hooked the towel around his neck and rounded the couch. "You can have some when you can get it yourself."

"…hen."

Bobby wasn't sure if that was meant to be "mother hen" or "henpecked," but, amused, he figured either applied.

"Uh-huh," Sam said, unimpressed. "Hey, if you're up, take some of these pills." He sat on the coffee table next to the neat line of bottles and started picking up and reading them in turn.

"Hate pills," Dean muttered, but Sam ignored him and Dean didn't fight it when his brother folded several tablets into his palm, then helped him up enough to chase them down with a few swallows of water.

"You doin' okay?" Sam asked critically as he got Dean flat and tucked in again. "Wanna move upstairs to a bed?"

"Yes. No. Go t'sleep, S'm." Dean was halfway there already, eyes closed again, a few of the creases in his face smoothing out.

"Yeah, okay," Sam said softly, but he didn't move, just sat there watching.

It was different, the way Bobby saw him worrying about Dean now. Not patronizing, like blood-hopped Sam had been. This version was humbled, sad, and not at all sure he could help his brother. Ironic, Bobby thought with a grimace, how ultimately they both needed to be needed.

"It's Christmas next week," Sam broke the quiet.

Bobby started. He hadn't thought Sam even remembered he was there. "I've got a calendar," he said carefully.

"I thought maybe we could…you know, celebrate a little. Might cheer him up, you know? Jo and Ellen…" He trailed off, not needing to say it. The Harvelle women's loss was one all three of them keenly felt, but Dean probably the most.

"I got some of Karen's decorations upstairs," Bobby said after a beat. "Suppose I could get a tree in the woods out back."

"Dean'll care more about the food," Sam responded with a little amusement. He still had his back to Bobby, so all he had to go on was Sam's tone and the tired lines of his body. "Could try baking him a pie…"

"Or get one from the co-op that he'll actually _enjoy_," Bobby corrected.

Sam honest-to-God laughed at that. He probably saw just like Bobby did how Dean's head turned a little at the sound even in sleep. "You're right."

They sat in silence another minute, listening to Dean breathing.

"I realized the other day that with Carthage wiped out, at least we don't have to worry about Jack's kid turning into a rugaru anymore." Sam almost seemed to be talking to himself now.

Bobby had actually thought of that himself in a random moment. He'd fully intended to keep an eye on the kid, after all. But it disturbed him somehow that Sam would remember that in the midst of all that was going on. Then again, Jack Montgomery had really gotten to Sam at the time, a mirror for his situation. Bobby huffed. "Right. Silver lining," he said wryly.

Sam's head bowed a little more. Bobby could see now that his hand was still on Dean's blanket-clad arm. "You really think you can find a way to lock Lucifer away again?"

No, he didn't. That hadn't been why he'd asked Sam to tell him what had happened. Bobby chewed his lip a moment, then answered as honestly as he could. "Maybe. Gonna keep trying, anyway."

Sam half-turned at that, the gloom of late afternoon sun through the window throwing his face in shadow. "Thanks, Bobby."

He understood. It wasn't just for the looking, or for still talking to them after all he'd been through that last year. It was for helping keep faith alive, so they could help each other.

"Anytime, son," he said, and meant it with all of his own crippled heart.

**The End**


End file.
